Frostbite
by amor-remanet
Summary: After his encounter with Famine, Sam gets a dream-visit from Lucifer.


The fingers that trail down Sam's cheek are Antarctic cold, the chest that presses against his back feels glacial — and all of them bring out a shudder and a moan that come from deep down in his chest. Even the breath that ghosts over the back of his neck lends everything the sensation of being dipped in a bathtub full of ice water, while the fingers busy themselves with tucking Sam's hair behind his ear. And yet, his heart races and his cheeks flush from this closeness, this proximity — everything in his head screams out about the situation's inherent wrongness, about how the last place Sam should be is relaxing into the Devil's arms… but underneath the freezing, something tingles — unexpected, and warm.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" Lucifer asks him in a whisper. "I'm not talking about the demon blood, either, though your self-destructive urges do concern me."

"What are you talking about, then?" Sam demands. He doesn't want to be here — or he shouldn't — the last place he remembers being is Bobby's panic room — and he tried to stay awake, he beat on the door and called for Dean and Cas to let him out, and then he started seeing them — all the demons: Ruby, Lilith, Alastair, Meg — all mocking him while he was powerless to stop it… And that's when the exhaustion hit him. His eyes would not stay open any longer.

Lucifer shakes his head, giving Sam's hair what the hunter can only describe as a nuzzle. His lips, like the rest of him, are icicles — and, along with his tongue, they're dripping with lies, Sam knows that, but when they press into the back of his neck, he can't help the hitching of his breath in his throat, or the desirous whine that comes up. With delicacy — the way someone might handle holding a baby, or carrying some priceless vase — Lucifer trails a hand up Sam's bicep, and wraps his arm around Sam's shoulder. "Why do you insist on keeping us apart?"

"Because I can't let you in," Sam tells him, grunting and trying to buck his shoulder out of Lucifer's hold. The archangel doesn't even struggle to keep him close. "You know why. …I let you in, you destroy the world. It's that simple."

"No, Sam. It isn't." Lucifer's lips run up Sam's neck, exhaling through his hair like wind through gray and leafless trees. Sam's face contorts in anger and he tries, again, to knock the angel off — or at least to get his shoulder free — and, once again, his attempt prove fruitless. Lucifer just holds Sam against his chest, coaxing him to lean back into the iciness that makes his stomach writhe while his heart skips beats. As his fingers brush through Sam's hair and come down to caress the sharp line of his jaw, a wave of warmth hits him, rushing over the places inside him that Sam thought were numb, and urging him to unwind.

The retaliation flies out of his mouth in driving heat as he accuses Lucifer of everything he can think of, from the innocent corpses charred up in the Holocaust's ovens to global warming to the fire that burned down the Library of Alexandria. "You want to burn the world down," Sam spits, trying to shake off that thought and the urge to just give in, to relax. "Just admit it so we can go our separate ways already."

"I've never wanted that," Lucifer insists, his voice cracking for the first time Sam can remember. "Why would I want to destroy my Father's handiwork? So stunning in its complexities, in the patterns, and the randomness, and the patterns that underlie the randomness — gorgeous in the craftsmanship and the attention to detail… I could never."

Sam hisses, "So, what do you want?" as though it's a curse.

Lucifer's lips nudge into his ear; Sam shudders, but it doesn't feel wrong. "I want you, Sam," the archangel says. "I think I've been perfectly clear about that. …I want to have you with me always, and I want to make this world perfect." The kiss comes to the pulse point just above Sam's jugular. It does not last long before the words replace it: "I want to stop meeting you like this. I don't want to invade your dreams to have what's been destined for us since the Creation."

Sam wants to retort, to question this — but he wakes up alone, instead, alone and curled up and freezing on the panic room cot.


End file.
